Quibi arrived for iPhone and Android last week with a 90-day free trial and a 1-year Free subscription for T-Mobile customers. New data by Sensor Tower shows it was downloaded about 300k times on just the first day.

What was glaringly obvious for some of us right away though was that, if we are at home, wouldn’t we rather watch Quibi on our TV’s.

Meg Whitman, Quibi’s CEO said that a cast to TV feature is coming in six months in an interview with Digital Trends.

Quibi is an app designed for life before Coronavirus. It was designed for the commuter on a train or waiting in line at the grocery store. Not for being isolated at home where you are sure to have larger screens available to watch Movies and TV on.

Despite not having the ability to use this service on anything but a TV, it is still a compelling idea that is worth a try.

Whitman said that the team debated weather or not to launch as the outbreak starting getting worse. Whitman did say the “since the app is completely cloud-based, its engineers were able to launch it from their homes, and the service already had content prepared through November.”

• Disney+ launched with 4 million downloads on its 1st day
• HBO only hit 45k downloads on its first day
• Quibi was at #3 in the iOS App Store its first day
• Quibi was at #29 in the Google Play Store its first day

Quibi Overview

The service is from the mind of Jeffery Katzenberg and former HP CEO Meg Whitman. It was designed specifically for smartphones and the shows are like movies that you consume in small 10 minute or less portions. After spending $1 Billion on shows and their stars we will see if people really want to stare at their small screens at home during the pandemic or opt for larger ones.

Since it was designed for smartphones their are no other apps available not even a web app. If you are willing to watch video on your phone when you laptop, tablet and TV are nearby then checkout the show lineup below.

One of the neat tricks that app has up its sleeve is the ability to play the content in either landscape or portrait. It seems to handle the rotating well, it even reconfigured the credits for the orientation. The rotating of your phone can sometime reveal areas of the shot not seen in one orientation, so you might find yourself with a pop socket rotating your phone during the shows.

T-Mobile customers will be able to trial Quibi for 1 year.

There are a few glaring omissions we need to point out:

• No user profiles like Netflix
• Only on stream at a time
• Just phone apps, no TV, Laptop, Tablet apps

The price for the service is $4.99 (with Ads) or $7.99 (Ad-free). The price seems high considering the only way to enjoy the content is on one phone at a time. Might be worth trying for 90-days though.

Source: Digital Trends